Certainly. Whist along with ICAO Pans Ops et al certain ANSPs such as Shanwick, Gander, New York, Piarco, Atlantico etc have taken advantage of ADS-B and C now with NAT HLA, some parts of the world have been seemingly reluctant to take full advantage of increased surveillance in a non-radar environment. The reasons for this can only be answered by those ANSPs but anecdotally we are proactively offered ‘free speed’ in a traditionally Mach no separation technique environment over the NAT region. The save goes with higher levels, as we are not openly invited to request higher levels. This never really happened in ‘days of old’.

Over the Arabian Sea it is a different kettle of fish. We may have CPDLC but that’s about the only advantage at all if transiting at night. Typically for the UK-India/SE Asia overflights it isn’t much of an issue as we are already at decent enough levels by my the time we would reach that airspace. Nowadays due to various geopolitical issues we have less traffic generally in that area in peak times. During peak times prior to this we’d have an option for a climb or a direct and TCAS as a purely anecdotal instrument would show a situation similar to that over the NAT in which a more beneficial clearance would be issued. Alas over the Arabian Sea it’s as if you placed an official request for Christmas to be celebrated globally on August 1st. As such we are kept low and there is a ‘race’ to get the best level possible to ride out the long wait for any higher level that will only be granted once with ME controllers or those in the likes of Pakistan or Iran once under radar control again.